Back to Saturn X Episode 2 is out of beta! (v1.0.1 Aug 13, 2020)

[Velvetic]

I did it again, and please don't hate me :(

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?postid=1188440

[DeathevokatioN]

As a big Judas Priest and Queen fan I approve of the gay soundtrack.

[bradharding]

Wow! A lot of repressed gay love on this thread for some reason... Maybe the title of this episode is a bit too phallic for some?

But on topic... Great work Esselfortium and team! Absolutely loved Episode 1, and although its taking me a while to get through it (coz I code more than I play), I'd have to say Episode 2 is even better! Giving BTSX some special love, so it will look and run perfectly in the next version of DOOM RETRO.

[Demonologist]

@ dew: Please don't get me wrong. I may be pretty harsh - but that's because I'm a cynical, spiteful and impolite dickhead in general - but in fact I wish you guys the best of luck with all this stuff. So if you indeed take criticism seriously and are ready to change many things in the process - that's great, and I'll be glad to change my opinion one day and to admit that my vexation was premature. Cheers.

P.S. No offence meant to Mechadon whatsoever, the fact that I think he overdid his map quite a bit in terms of length and non-threatening combat doesn't mean that I hate him or something. Maps are maps, and people are people, I tend to separate these things, to a known degree.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 25's a real behemoth, then?

Sounds cool, I really like odyssey-length maps, personally. Well, in theory, I mean--I have seen them done badly (sometimes very badly) before, of course. But I've got confidence in Mechadon.

[j4rio]

Demonologist said:

P.S. No offence meant to Mechadon whatsoever, the fact that I think he overdid his map quite a bit in terms of length and non-threatening combat...

I don't. I've played much worse offenders of that especially in e1. This was allright.

Mechadon said:

I've gotta wait a while for my motion sickness to subside before I watch your FDA for MAP25. In the mean time, would you be able to give any detailed feedback on where you got lost and any ideas that might help out with navigation?

I'm not sure, it was after red key locked door where I pressed one button guarded by vile and after pressing it... nothing happenned. At least I haven't figured out what happenned for the rest of the demo and instead found some secrets while wallhugging pretty much everything I could.

Oh, and the demo is split in two because I had to interrupt recording.

glenzinho said:

The final monster in that map was highly amusing, especially after picking up the BFG directly before it. As they say, leave it in!

edit: Is it just me or does beta 2 still have the old Map 20?

-1

I think 20 was rather sucky and should have just ended after that crusher room, that's about the last part of map that was okay.

[Superluigieth1]

Xaser said:

alphabet stuff

[Demonologist]

j4rio said:

I don't. I've played much worse offenders of that especially in e1. This was allright.

Well... got me here, I guess. From what I can recollect - e1 did have some long maps, but I can't remember any of them pissing me off, really. If that could serve as an excuse...

But at the very least I can support you on this:

j4rio said:

I think 20 was rather sucky and should have just ended after that crusher room, that's about the last part of map that was okay.

Putting the word 'speed' in a map title and then offering monotonous plasma slog is... discouraging. The second half of this map is lovely indeed (aesthetic-wise), like tnt map20's natural parts on steroids, but gameplay needs some serious overhauls in pretty much every area. Especially the beginning, man, what a tedium it was.

j4rio said:

I'm not sure, it was after red key locked door where I pressed one button guarded by vile and after pressing it... nothing happenned. At least I haven't figured out what happenned for the rest of the demo and instead found some secrets while wallhugging pretty much everything I could.

I saw several red doors across the map, and one room right in front of the start that has clear 'exit' indications and is locked with red barriers. Have you been there?
I can't really give any guidance in case you did, since RK fight is where I failed twice and left in anger after that. A shame for me, this is actually the standout fight of this map and it's clearly slaughterfest-tier that should be right up my alley, yet what can I do, the long way to it was making me exhausted with unshakeable stability, so I just wasn't able to play it decently. Duh.

A joke about Citadel At The Edge Of Eternity was a funny one, actually. I laughed.

[Mechadon]

j4rio said:

I'm not sure, it was after red key locked door where I pressed one button guarded by vile and after pressing it... nothing happenned. At least I haven't figured out what happenned for the rest of the demo and instead found some secrets while wallhugging pretty much everything I could.

Hmm, it sounds like the area you got stuck at was part of the exit route after grabbing the red key. If the area your describing is the same one I'm thinking, you walk into a small room which has a few shotgunners/chainers, then a wall in a previous room lowers and reveals that Archvile+switch. What's supposed to happen is after you press that switch, a teleporter will lower in the next room and enemies will start to spawn in (you should get an audio cue with the teleporting so you know to go back in there). You gotta go through those enemies and step on the lowered teleporter, which will put you up on a ledge in the same room (and this will very quickly loop you back to the Mastermind courtyard, thus completing the RK adventure).

I'm not sure why it didn't work though...last time I tested it in Chocorenderlimits, it worked :/. If its not working, then you can't complete the map after starting the RK loop. Soooo...yea, that wouldn't be good. I'll make a point to watch your demo soon. Thanks again for you help!

@Demonologist: Sorry you didn't enjoy the map (but I'm also glad to hear you liked MAP14). The long, exploration-based style probably won't appeal to as many people as the other maps will. It was the first map I made for this project and I was till in Vela Pax mode. That's probably why its so large. But given its style, I've heard good things from the testers in regards to its playability and, maybe more importantly, its navigability. So I suppose we can just chalk this up to a difference in tastes :)

[j4rio]

Well... got me here, I guess. From what I can recollect - e1 did have some long maps, but I can't remember any of them pissing me off, really.

I think Mechadon's e1 map 15 felt much less interesting for me compared to his e2 submissions, as an example.

Mechadon said:

Hmm, it sounds like the area you got stuck at was part of the exit route after grabbing the red key. If the area your describing is the same one I'm thinking, you walk into a small room which has a few shotgunners/chainers, then a wall in a previous room lowers and reveals that Archvile+switch. What's supposed to happen is after you press that switch, a teleporter will lower in the next room and enemies will start to spawn in (you should get an audio cue with the teleporting so you know to go back in there). You gotta go through those enemies and step on the lowered teleporter, which will put you up on a ledge in the same room (and this will very quickly loop you back to the Mastermind courtyard, thus completing the RK adventure).

Yeah, that's definitely it and it definitely didn't work, so you can save yourself the trouble of watching through FDA.

[Demonologist]

j4rio said:

Yeah, that's definitely it and it definitely didn't work

Confirmed. The switch guarded by AV was already pressed at that point.

@ Mechadon: Well, at the very least I liked BFG fight and key setpieces (though you might consider rethingking blue key one a bit, as it's just a trivial chokepoint-camping now; maybe making pinkies warp in at the key platform in addition to imp/caco horde in the marble hall to make the player surrounded would work better for that part?), and the design itself is masterful. Eternal indeed, although mapper, not megawad, heh.
FYI - I said screw it and traversed all the way along to red key setpiece, grabbed it and left the area without a single shot fired, thus rendering all your teleporting hordes stuff useless. I don't want you to fix it (really!), but I'm informing you about the possibility anyway.

[Tarnsman]

Demonologist said:

Putting the word 'speed' in a map title and then offering monotonous plasma slog is... discouraging.

You're supposed to run past everything.

[Marcaek]

It doesn't work. In this case it's less of a "don't camp doors with a chaingun" or "don't shotgun snipe a cyber from a 32-wide crack in the wall to save cells" and more of a "don't engage shitty baron placement with anything besides berserk".

[Justince]

r_init: getpostnumberforname: post not found!

Edited August 1, 2017 by Justince

[Mechadon]

@j4rio: Ok, I think I figured out what's going on here (and I've already fixed it). It's possible to trigger the fight in choco/vanilla, so that's why I missed it. What I think was happening was the monster blocking floor in the spawner was lowering before the teleport target destination. So if a monster decided to teleport into that sector before it lowered enough, it would bug out. I was able to reproduce it at any rate, so I'm guessing this was the cause? Anyways, I fixed it by having the teleport lower action and the monster spawner releaser use the same action; the teleporter destination sector should always completely lower before any monsters can cross a teleporter line.

@Demonologist: Good idea concerning the BK! I added some Demons that spawn in on top of the BK pedestal, so you should see that whenever another beta gets released. The RK fight also got an update so that its not quite a ruthless. The monsters should spawn in more defined waves with increasing difficulty, and they shouldn't spawn in so quickly now. That fight is so far into the map and I can understand the frustration of getting killed that far into such a long map. Hopefully its a bit better now.

[vdgg]

MAP13 has one of the best layouts I've seen in a good while. But why is the rocket launcher so late? Swap SSG and RL? Just an idea.

The WAD starts with so-so maps, starting from TGH's map it is really good. TGH map is rather ugly (the blandest looking one), but plays well. Thanks for not putting tag 666/667, this may finally start a new trend of MAP07s.

[Marcaek]

Tributes to Dead Simple in the map07 slot of every wad is a trend that needs to die. It's super dated as a concept, if you're going to use those tags at least be creative about it and don't just make an arena map with arachnotrons and mancubi.

[esselfortium]

Dead Simple clones and Icon of Sin clones are two things that you will never see in a BTSX episode. :P

(the third thing you won't see is good maps or w/e)

[Archi]

Music on map26 is awesome, amazing work, Xaser.

[stewboy]

Yes! I really like the music on map26 as well :)

[Olroda]

After having played both episodes of BtSX, I have some comments regarding their design. Please note that I am genuinely curious as to what you might answer, and this is not an attempt to pick a fight.

The music is clearly competently made and good on its own, but fits about as well as an obese woman would in a midget-sized bikini. Why? It is clearly gay (as in what the word meant before the homosexuals claimed it for themselves; happy, joyful), and reminds me about the soundtrack of games such as Super Mario or Sonic. Isn't DooM about an invasion from hell? The end of the world? For me, the music that fits DooM is the dark ambient stuff from the PSX version, or the aggressive metal from the PC originals. Even some of the tracks from DooM II, which sound like some sort of elevator music, fits better.
Another comparison could also be made. As far as I know, DooM was originally going to be based on the movie Aliens. Well, imagine watching that film with its music replaced with that from from BtSX...


The maps themselves are pretty, with good-looking new textures. I suspect that it took a great deal of effort to make them. However, I felt that the actual gameplay of said maps was lacking (especially in episode two). Sure, you're constantly assailed on all sides by the combined arms kampfgruppe of revenants, chaingunners, hellknights and other pals, but to me, it was more a chore to fight them than anything else. It is too obvious that they are set up as encounters / obstacles without any thought of "why" said monster would be present, I think.

Another thing I didn't get was the bizarre level names (especially in the first episode). Is it some inside joke, perhaps?

In conclusion, I think that a WAD's "atmosphere" and sense of progress is as important as anything else when it comes to mapping (or making any game; there are no horror elements in the terrific Adventures of Square WAD, for instance), and as such, I couldn't enjoy BtSX, unfortunately. I don't think it "sucks", but I suspect that we have very different ideas of what makes a good DooM WAD.

//Olroda.

[stewboy]

Olroda said:

The music is clearly competently made and good on its own, but fits about as well as an obese woman would in a midget-sized bikini. Why? It is clearly gay (as in what the word meant before the homosexuals claimed it for themselves; happy, joyful), and reminds me about the soundtrack of games such as Super Mario or Sonic. Isn't DooM about an invasion from hell? The end of the world? For me, the music that fits DooM is the dark ambient stuff from the PSX version, or the aggressive metal from the PC originals. Even some of the tracks from DooM II, which sound like some sort of elevator music, fits better.
Another comparison could also be made. As far as I know, DooM was originally going to be based on the movie Aliens. Well, imagine watching that film with its music replaced with that from from BtSX...

I'm a little at a loss how any of the music in BTSX could be considered 'happy' or 'joyful'. A lot of it is upbeat, yes, but there is a difference between being upbeat and being happy. The words I would use to describe most of the music might include 'mysterious', 'atmospheric', 'angry', or 'sad', but never 'happy'. Is it the instrument choice that you disagree with? Are there specific tracks that you could single out?
Also, I don't see how the comparison with Aliens is relevant, as this wad isn't going for that atmosphere. Of course this music isn't going to fit there, it's a completely different context.

[jmickle66666666]

Olroda said:

Why? It is clearly gay (as in what the word meant before the homosexuals claimed it for themselves; happy, joyful),

can we stop with this shit

if you think "gay" is the best way to describe something then go learn to fucking speak

[Varis Alpha]

the bizarre level-names are because they're all taken from songs made by Guided By Voices. fitting or not, i feel it's much better choosing these abstract names than trying to go with something that makes sense (because it's Doom, why the hell would you try to make sense out of it?)

i also disagree with that the mod's music is unfitting. it's very much so fitting, and i'm sure the musicians took their time in composing pieces that fit with a level's specific atmosphere (or that the project leader assigned tracks to the best fitting candidates.) i can sort of see the resemblance to early Sonic music in some places, but not so much that it gives me an elaborate impression that these are the ruins that a blue hedgehog would scurry around in. and the Super Mario comparison is completely out of the water.

the gameplay part i can't comment on just yet, as i'm only on map 4 right now.

[Gez]

Just noticed the palette and colormap are slightly different from episode 1.

[MaxED]

[beta 2] MAP10: I was blocked by teleported cacodemons 2 times in a row while playing this section (by blocked I mean they were stuck in my char, so I couldn't move).

Spoiler

[beta 2] MAP12: red and blue key traps are waaay to easy to avoid.
[beta 2] MAP13: why lines 2958, 3056 and 3067 are blocking?

[esselfortium]

Gez said:

Just noticed the palette and colormap are slightly different from episode 1.

If they are, it's something that's changed project-wide in the interim since the last public E1 build came out. I don't remember what would have changed, though!

MaxED said:

[beta 2] MAP10: I was blocked by teleported cacodemons 2 times in a row while playing this section (by blocked I mean they were stuck in my char, so I couldn't move).[/b]

Spoiler

I'm not sure how this could be happening, since monsters aren't capable of teleporting onto the player's position outside of the MAP30 slot. Were you using a gameplay mod?

[Gez]

esselfortium said:

If they are, it's something that's changed project-wide in the interim since the last public E1 build came out. I don't remember what would have changed, though!

At least indices 165, 166, 167, and 231. On the colormap front, the blue invulnerability is a bit brighter, and also the yellow ranges (160-167, 229-231) are smoother.

I was just curious if it was intended that each episode had a slightly different palette or not.

[MaxED]

esselfortium said:

I'm not sure how this could be happening, since monsters aren't capable of teleporting onto the player's position outside of the MAP30 slot. Were you using a gameplay mod?

Yes, I'm playing with Brutal Doom v19. So, that's what caused it then?

[TMD]

>Brutal Doom
>BTSX

Let me guess. You also enjoy spaghetti sauce on your ice cream sundae.